Before Genshin Impact: A Brief History of Chinese RPGs | Hacker News Reader

Before Genshin Impact: A Brief History of Chinese RPGs

felipepepe.medium.com

49 pointsdanbolt14 comments

> For comparison, remember that western RPGs by this time barely had any story. Apart from games like Betrayal at Krondor and the Ultima series, it was still mostly “create a group of heroes, enter dungeon & kill evil wizard”.

I feel like this couldn't have been true by 1995.

I mean, Fallout and Planescape Torment.

Fallout was published in Oct '97 and Planescape in Dec '99.

The Narrative RPG was pretty thin on the ground in the Western RPG category until the late 1990s.

Betrayal At Krondor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betrayal_at_Krondor

Quest For Glory series - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Glory

Ultima Underworld - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_Underworld_II:_Labyrint...

Darksun - (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Sun:_Shattered_Lands)

Incredibly large number of ways to resolve any situation, and one of the best, and most flexible, opening sequences to a game that I've played to date.

The mainline Ultima series, notably https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_VII:_The_Black_Gate was 1993 and started to get heavy on narrative.

Ravenloft: Strahd's Possession - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravenloft:_Strahd%27s_Possessi...

3 games in made back to back by that developer, all are worth playing.

The Summoning - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Summoning_(video_game)

Predates Planescape Torment, but is in the same genre/feel.

Dragon Wars - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Wars

Open world RPG, fit on a single floppy disk. Start out as a slave, work you way up to leading (or suppressing!) revolutions. Less narrative heavy maybe, but still a great game, and one of the most groundbreaking IMHO. Needs more appreciation.

While I'll admit Baldur's Gate was a first for the very large amount of text included, it isn't like western RPGs were devoid of storyline prior to 1995.

Pathways Into Darkness (1993) had a brilliant narrative. The most disappointing thing is that so many people will never experience it.

I feel like this couldn't have been true by 1995.

The market of RPGs specifically made in the west by 1995 is relatively limited. So, you cross out the biggest entries in that space and you will run out of options pretty quickly.

But the argument falls a little too close to "If you exclude the western RPGs titles with a plot, there aren't many western RPGs with a plot".

Wow, I learned a lot. I'd be curious to try out the Chinese equivalent of Final Fantasy VI - when storytelling, gameplay, and art achieved a sort of local triple maximum. No doubt opinions are divided but I wonder if there are a handful of candidates that an interested but ignorant gamer like myself might look at.

Would definitely recommend pal95 and swd3 exp, the best two of them. I just checked I can still run them in win 10.

Pal95 and Swd3 expansion are the two games I have played for multiple times and still love.

Yes they are legendary games loved by most chinese players. In fact a wave of youtubers are targetting people our age to create videos to re-visit these games and all the spin-offs.

I played PAL95. It was fun with an engaging story, and I hope they can do a remake of the original with modern pixel art and music.

Also the Heroes of Jin Yong is fun as well, with some Easter eggs that run true to the Jin Yong’s kung fu universe. I wish there are better/modern attempts to build and flesh out the Jin Yong universe similar to the Marvel series — the work really deserves much better adoptions.

Edit: I also really liked 魔武王, don’t think it has English translation. Really want a remake of this…

Edit2: English title of 魔武王 is Dark Knight Saga

Why is this Chinese propaganda on the HN front page? /s

I've been very impressed with a lot of the contemporary Chinese games and media that I've encountered - I don't play multiplayer games though, which seems to be their mainstream. There seems to be a lot less overt sexualization and more emphasis on aesthetic and storytelling in the RPG scene. Honestly, I wish I could get anything from Japan or the US where female characters wear clothes.

I don't game much these days but was totally captivated by Eastward (single-player, Steam/Switch), IIRC it was only during the credits I realized it was made by a Chinese team. Eastward and Tunic are my two gems from 2022.

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